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The Internet

The Company Therapist (dot.com) 128

Posted by JonKatz from the reinventing-storytelling-online dept.
Some of us have long argued that culture isn't being destroyed in cyberspace, but is actually being reborn here. Many journalists, politicians and educators still haven't grasped this, perhaps because they rarely visit or report on sites like The Company Therapist. The public still often thinks of the Net in terms of thievery, retailing, pornography, and hacking and cracking, but the arts are rapidly moving online, sometimes in quite revolutionary ways. This hi-tech story-telling experiment, which turns storytelling upside down and uses hypertext to create a collaborative narrative, is a terrific case in point.

When the employees of a fictional San Francisco tech company need psychiatric help -- a not-unheard-of phenomenon out there -- they turn to their fictional Company Therapist, Dr. Charles Balis. I've used the word "fictional" twice because after a few visits to the site, readers quickly forget that this isn't a real shrink working with the stressed-out employees of a real company.

Balis, who completed his psychiatric residency at Columbia Presbyterian in New York City, headed west to set up his own practice, we learn. A shrewd and conservative businessmen, he contracted with CalaCare, Inc., an HMO, and agreed to spend more than half his time providing mental health counseling for Silicon Impressions, Inc., a huge hardware and software firm.

On the site, the stories of Dr. Balis' work unfold through his files, written collaboratively by "patients" who visit the site and create identities. We see transcripts of therapy sessions, phone conversations, personnel records -- even doodles. Over time, the continuing stories of Dr. Balis' patients, their psychological problems and dramas, allow the kind of character development normally associated with well-crafted novels, but not with websites.

The stories are almost shockingly realistic and compelling. We get drawn into them, often forgetting that they aren't quite real. Or are they? Some of the created characters -- patients Helen Gregory, Decker Jenkins -- are so contemporary and recognizable that they surely must reflect, at least in part, the lives of their creators.

The site sees itself not only as entertainment but as an educational vehicle to help writers polish their work -- an idea with broad applicability for other professions, from medicine to the law to other arts.

According to Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology, a book edited by Stephen Wilson where I first learned of the site, a company called Pipsqueak Productions devised this hyperfictional environment as the perfect vehicle for collaborative fictional storytelling in cyberspace. Very original move. A therapist's office is a font of narrative, a great device for collecting different stories, honing different voices, full of interesting characters with evolving problems and case histories, able to draw on telephone calls and office transcripts, a place to discuss theories of treatment. Balis's world -- the pressured, constantly changing world of hi-tech - emerges vividly. Updated daily, The Company Therapist provides nearly two years of well-organized, easily accessible stories, doctor's notes and other materials. Since it's written by its collective audience rather than a single author or the site's creators, the range of tales and voices is fascinating.

Every contributor retains a recognizable style, yet is still able to move the collective narrative forward. In fact, many stories are moving forward at once, relating both to "work" and the personal lives of the patients, each told in an idiosyncratic voice and representing the challenges of a different life, yet collectively, painting a vivid portrait of a culture. This site is unique on the Web, both for its originality and quality of design, strong testimony to the notion online, technology and art are fusing to create things that are as new as they are exciting.
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The Company Therapist (dot.com) More

The Company Therapist (dot.com)

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  • SNL (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by KingKire64 ( 321470 )
    Its like a Studdering Sean Conery "Ill take The The Rapist.com for 300. Damn you trebeck you with your greasy hair and dego mustache."

  • Interesting (Score:2, Informative)

    by fruey ( 563914 )
    The collaborative nature of Internet is, in the case of 99% of /. readers, clearly something that is important in today's business.

    Those people who don't "get it" will eventually, as long as their business is one that is clearly in need of Internet.

    Here in Africa, Internet is very expensive, but HUGE amounts of development money are spent connecting people, because Education and Development can only be improved by having access to the wonderful resources made available on the net.

    The Americans have already got it. These virtual company psychiatrists are all very well, but the point is that this is stage two or three of the process, not stage one.

    I'm all for content like this, but frankly what I am really interested in is information for development, learning, self improvement. It's only the developed world that have gone on from the "obvious" that is net and are spending time with such frivolity.

    • This is a site for fiction, not virtual psychiatrists. It allows budding writers to practice thier trade.

      This site would be great for improving your language and writing skills, as educational as it gets!
  • There's more to the internet than porn and slashdot?! Oh no! Why didn't anyone tell me?

  • thievery, retailing, pornography, and hacking (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    are all better, and cheaper, than therapy
  • Kinda reminds me about how Majestic was suppose to be a revolution in gaming. Only this time the revolution is in an art form, and they are not charging for it.

    I definately like the section with "The Anonymous Faxer", I wonder if the idea of using puzzles as a part of a story is original (for a non-game) or has someone seen this type of storytelling before?
    • Yes. Sophie's World. An excellent introduction to philosophy for those that are so inclined. Required reading for all of my cousins, nieces, etc., upon attaining the age of 14.

      Very puzzle/riddle/mystery-based, and it holds the attention of teenagers quite well on account of that.

      l

  • New Media, New Works (Score:5, Informative)

    by cporter ( 61382 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:12PM (#3163367)
    Someone... somewhere... observed that the development of new 'works'* - the creation of whole new genres, real paradigm shifts, progresses in stages:
    - The new medium becomes available.
    - Artists create works in the new medium that mimic works in the old medium, learning in the process.
    - Artists move on to new ideas in the new medium, launching a whole new class of art or fiction.

    This can be illustrated by the examples of photography, film, television, etc, for all of history. It kind of disappoints me that people are using the web to imitate television, books, newspapers, etc, instead of doing more with the medium. Maybe we're still just getting there.

    A good, if dated, book on the subject of creativity and possibilities on the net (especially concerning non-linear narrative) is Hamlet on the Holodeck [fatbrain.com] by Janey Murray.

    * (referring to artistic works, but I think it applies to other types as well. programming?)

  • Jon haven't you argued about a hundred times before that culture is being destroyed by Cyber space? Not the other way around?

    Perhaps if you actually believed in your stances your articles wouldn't read like such utter crap.
    • The essence of reasoning is maintaining the right to contradict oneself.
      • Everybody has the right to contradict one's self. However it is usually considered good practice to mention that you have changed your position and list your reasoning for it. Changing your position because it's convenient for an article might lead readers to think he doesn't care what he writes about as long as he gets his fee.

  • Is it Art? Is it even worth your time? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AlaskanUnderachiever ( 561294 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:17PM (#3163385) Homepage
    I don't know art, but I do know a bit about writing and I really can't say I like the site at all. If this is an example of the web "opening up" and "exploring new frontiers" then I am afraid we have a LONG way to go. This strikes me as more of the mindless self indulgence of a bored post grad than work of any worth. I see this sort of trite crap every day and I am NOT impressed. (and before you flame, yes I did read through the site). There are plenty of other sites out there for writing development, and most of them are a bit more low on the "hopelessly unemployable and overeducated" scale.

  • Wow (Score:1)

    by phyxeld ( 558628 )
    This site could eaisly keep me from getting any work done today, tommorrow, and possibly most of next week. I better stop now.

  • Translation from Katz-speak (Score:5, Funny)

    by mbrubeck ( 73587 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:21PM (#3163408) Homepage
    If this story were written by anyone other than Jon Katz:
    Some of us have long argued that culture isn't being destroyed in cyberspace, but is actually being reborn here.
    Hi there.
    Many journalists, politicians and educators still haven't grasped this,
    I was bored today...
    perhaps because they rarely visit or report on sites like The Company Therapist.
    ...but I found this nifty web page.
    The public still often thinks of the Net in terms of thievery, retailing, pornography, and hacking and cracking,
    I showed it to my co-workers, but they didn't seem interested.
    but the arts are rapidly moving online, sometimes in quite revolutionary ways.
    But they're a bunch of losers anyways.
    This hi-tech story-telling experiment, which turns storytelling upside down and uses hypertext to create a collaborative narrative, is a terrific case in point.
    I mean, this site is like, SO COOL.

  • katzism (Score:5, Funny)

    by I Want GNU! ( 556631 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:22PM (#3163415) Homepage
    The stories are almost shockingly realistic and compelling. We get drawn into them, often forgetting that they aren't quite real. Or are they?
    This reminds me of The Matrix. I watched the movie and often forgot that it wasn't quite real. Or is it??

    • Re:katzism (Score:3, Funny)

      by Dr Caleb ( 121505 )
      it wasn't quite real. Or is it??

      Depends...did you eat the red pill or the blue pill?

    • I don't mean to be a dink or anything, but they really didn't seem to terribly real to me. I only read the patient summaries, and it became obvious to me that all of the women had sexual disorders (highly unlikely) and almost none of the men did.
  • Who lets this guy write for slashdot? Is he real or what?
  • "I like this site. This site is cool".

    Just visited it. Cheap soap opera, not very well written, and definitely not interesting. Actually, it's pretty Jon-Katz-esque.
  • Actually, it should be:
    The Company Therapist (dot com),

    Not:
    The Company Therapist (dot.com)

    This means:
    The Company Therapist (dot dot com)

    Similar to:
    Windows 2000 - based on NT technology

    According to Microsoft, NT stands for New Technology

    So this means:
    Windows 2000 - based on New Technology technology

    A small gripe, yes, but if we're expected to see monetary value in this website, someone should be doing simple quality assurance on it. It's a basic principle of good web design.
    • MS claims that NT doesn't stand for New Technology anymore.

      Way to revise history to cover up redundancy in your marketing department!
    • Actually NT has kinda turned into a proper noun now hasn't it? If we were to assume that then wouldn't "... based on NT technology" be actually grammatically ok? Even you recognized it becoming a proper noun because to typed New Technology with capital letters enforcing this idea. If ya wanna get real anal. :)

      http colon slash slash slash dot dot org (sounds violent with all that slashing of the colon)
  • Okay I've rarely read a JonK article that I enjoyed, but I figured that other people must like it so no biggy there. But what the heck is the point of this story? The site isn't that interesting and the article is pointless.

    I am very curious; is there any voting or anything to determine if a JonK article is posted or does he have a post-o-matic button?

  • Hmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bloggins02 ( 468782 )
    Why is Mr. Katz starting to sound suspiciously like Ron Popeil?
  • The web spawned document simulation fiction (of which "The Company Therapist" is an example), fan fiction, hyperlink fiction ("choose your own adventure"), and nebular fiction (browse your way from site to site and figure it all out). While these are all interesting ways to tell a story, they really do not hold a candle to a book.

    It would be great to see some of this work actually make it into a book - in the form of a story with narration.
    • I agree. This sort of thing seems to me like all the "modern" sculptors who got too much in love with the new materials (fiberglass, latex, etc.) and forgot that they should be in the business of producing pleasing (or challenging, or instructive) works. As my wife--- an author and physics geek--- might say, "It's OK to do experimental art, but eventually you need to admit that the experiment didn't work and move on." I admit I might be proven wrong, but I haven't seen any "hyperlinked art" that I enjoy as much as traditional fiction.
  • The public still often thinks of the Net in terms of thievery, retailing, pornography, and hacking and cracking

    Actually, the public thinks of the Net in terms of flashy annoying banner adverts, pop-up windows, and the 500 "MAKE MONEY TODAY!" spam emails they get every day in thier AOL email box (And AOL 7.0 is FAST!)

    Jon, you really need to avoid the broad, sweeping generalizations that portray the world from your own, rather isolated and biased point of view. "The Public" ain't as naive and stupid as you'd like to portray them as in this website review.
  • ..Katz is a little late on this one. First off, they arent accepting submissions any more , so I would beg to differ that it is a 'collaborative' web site... What collaborative web site (in the utopian 'everbody can submit' sense of the word) closes it's doors to all but a few select writers?

    And secondly, it looks as if this web site hasnt even been updated in quite some time. Did Katz just find the nearest 'collaborative' site to use as his example in this article, or does he really think of this as a text book example of that kind of web site...
  • I see "The Rapist"
  • Some of us have long argued that culture isn't being destroyed in cyberspace, but is actually being reborn here

    Culture in America died years ago. It's called "content" now. The Internet is a massive hole of cultureless junk. "Geek culture" is not a culture, it's a reporters tag line.

    Those searching for meaning within the confins of the Internet are constantly disappointed.

    More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
    Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest
  • www.thesextherapist.org

    "We put the 'org' in orgasm!"
  • Collaborative fiction has been going on for years on the web, in various forms. For example, this [ezboard.com]
    Transformers based RPG I write on. From what I can tell (couldn't get very far into all the self-indulgent writing on The Therapist) the site Katz mentions mainly succeeds because it has a more accessable topic to the casual random websurfer than, say, a Transformers rpg. However, it seems to me very light on the "collaborative" aspect. The patients only talk directly to the therapist, which might be less confusing for the reader than having them talk to each other, but I find a lot more dull from a writer's standpoint.

    As something that wakes people up to the possibilities of collaborative fiction and art, good site. As actual collaborative fiction, not as good. Perhaps, though, that people are noticing is a good sign for this kind of work in general.

    Oh, and a few good points about collaborative fiction that I'm almost surprised Katz missed-

    1. Breaks down the barrier between artist and audience (a key feature of "New Media", and one of those things the MPAA/RIAA are deathly afraid of)

    2. A great way to improve your writing skills- you'd be surprised how much more actually writing with other writers (many who are better than you) helps than the traditional proofreading/critique/editing process.

  • The Desperate Search for Meaning (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChaoticCoyote ( 195677 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @02:15PM (#3163721) Homepage

    Jon, I'm not one of your usual critics, but it's articles of this type that have driven me away from Slahsdot in recent months...

    Why do you feel this desperate need to prove the importance of the web?

    Belief that the web is "creating culture" is as silly as those who accuse the web of "destroying culture". The web is part of a culture, and it is socially significant -- but in the end, the hubris that brought on the "dot bomb" boom is going to deflate those who have high aspirations for the "significance" of the web as a cultural engine.

    Oh, I once believed that the web would be a force for social change, providing an outlet for all the lost voices in the wilderness, uplifting the masses, and providing the masses with information about critical issues. In truth, the web did (and does) not create culture -- it reflects the culture it is embedded in. Having a universal, uncensored forum didn't suddenly make poeple want to listen to issue they'd ignored -- they kept right on ignoring those issues, and the web accomplished little or nothing in terms of enlightenment.

    The web is a powerful tool and a useful resource, but it won't remake humanity or redfine society as a whole. Such change require real human interactions...

    • the web didn't remake or begin to remake culture in the way your expectations idealized. But it is remaking culture. No, it's not a new compelling medium to enlighten people and make them interested in things that they had ignored, things that bore them.

      It makes people interested in things they are already interested in. It puts them in contact with information and groups of people they don't have access too. It's small influence (like the force of gravity is small) is that, slowly but surely, you realize, if you think of an interesting question, you can find interesting answers. It's the most passive thing imaginable. There is nothing more boring than expecting the net to entertain you... but come up with a good question, or think about an old hobby you dropped in the past, or ask yourself, "I wonder what Pitcairn is like" and you will find it the Most Entertaining thing.

      I believe that elightenment comes from awakening the hunger for knowledge, and the net awakens that. Like all human change, it will look slow to us individuals.

      Oh yeah, the other thing it, it's changed the culture, and you just don't notice because the culture has already normalized the change.

  • Katz spinning his wheels (Score:4, Insightful)

    by electroniceric ( 468976 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @02:17PM (#3163735)
    While I hesitate to jump on the bandwagon of people who like to abuse Jon Katz for sport, articles like this do make it seem like he's spinning his wheels.

    I have not read through Katz's earlier work at Wired, when he might have been accountable to an editor, but certainly most of his essays here are the sort of vague, grandiose pontification that any proper college writing teacher should cull out of a student. I recall being endlessly frustrated in college by the idea of having to write 4 pages about 5 lines of some piece of literature, but upon leaving school, I discovered that people are much more interested in what you can say cogently about a small point
    than hearing you sketch sweeping paint-by-number landscapes you can't possibly hope to fill in.

    In short, Katz, your ideas are moderately interesting but very overstated, and by focussing them into sharper points about tighter subjects, you'd make them interesting to read. I wish you luck tightening your writing.
    • "than hearing you sketch sweeping paint-by-number landscapes you can't possibly hope to fill in"

      That's awesome! I'll have to remember that. Slashdot, you should hire this person to write, at least it would be entertaining.

    • I hope you get to read this, but I had a short email exchange with Jon on this very subject, and he admits that not being concise enough is a weakness in his style.

      This is hardly something he only admits in private. He also admitted in the Slashdot Interview he did.

      I think nicely and politely pointing out the mistakes he makes (like you just did) is more conducive to Jon working on his flaws than all the random flaming that goes on here.

      Mart
      • What you say is totally true, and I should also volunteer that Jon writes much more than I could hope to, and in much more public places.
        And certainly the kind of feedback that people post here is much less focused than the writing they're complaining about, so posting here takes guts.

        If you read this, best of luck, JonKatz.

  • Katz is caught in a time warp (Score:3, Funny)

    by Enoch Root ( 57473 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @02:46PM (#3163867)
    It's funny. Every time I see a Katz article, I think of how cutting-edge and revolutionary his statements on online culture and multimedia revolution would be... If he had written them in 1992.

    So the Internet is being used to create art? Wow! Fancy the thought! :)
  • I've been writing collaborative fiction since about 1986 on the Island of Kesmai CompuServe message boards. It's commonplace among the online RPGing community (which wouldn't exist without collaborative fiction, though admittedly it's of widely varying quality). Most gaming sites now have associated bulletin boards (thanks to ezboard), and collaborative fiction is common among them. Sites for some games even let you build a hierarchy of pages to emulate a virtual world described and contributed to in text (e.g. the Shadowland fan-site for the Shadowrun game). And then there are MUXes....

    If the literary/artistic community is only noticing this now, they are way behind the curve.
  • "The Company Therapist (dot.com)"

    Sorry but I couldn't help but think of the Saturday Night Live Jeparody skit with Sean Connery.

    "I'll take the rapists for twenty!"

    ;-)
  • I used to MUSH. I played Star Wars MUSHes, as well as a few generic cyberpunk and feudal ones.

    Some of these MUSHes had little bits coded so that players could post logs of role-playing. These coded objects tended to exist in OOC (out of character space). Some carried meta-data about the role-playing, and most were text-searchable, at the very minimum.

    New players were encouraged to read over these "classic" role-playing sections, and in this way could understand how good role-playing worked (Wizards/Admins controlled content submission), and contextualize their own character at the same time.

    This would be, oh, about 10 years ago. Maybe a bit more. Some of those scenes carried some quite incredibly well written dialogue. Characters evolved constantly, their relationships changed. Much moreso than the patients involved on the Therapist.

    On this site reviewed by Katz, the only axis is the "therapist", with some occasional links between patients (but not many, no no). This drags it an order of complexity below the MUSHes and what-not that I was playing well in advance of big fancy terms like "colloborative thematic fiction-based website".

    If this is the best you can come up with for new and neat ideas on the internet, Katz, I'm afraid you missed the boat by about a decade. The interface may not have been so pretty, but it was all there, already.

    People who understood a bit about the subculture wrote articles, back then, about MUSHing as a method of interactive, continually evolving fiction.

    That was back when it was a new and interesting idea.

    -leem

  • The stories are almost shockingly realistic and compelling.

    Maybe I just hit the lemons, but neither adjective applied to what I read. If you want compelling, experimental short fiction, by a true master, may I suggest Donald Barthelme [eskimo.com].

    Sorry, it's not hypertext, or cyber-anything, but it is great literature.

  • Hi! I'm Homer Simpson! I'm a complete idiot! I can do anything I want to and get away with it! I live in a mansion and eat lobster 'cuz I'm Homer Simpson!

    or

    Hi! I'm John Katz! I'm a complete idiot! I sit around all day and surf the web looking for stuff! I can publish inane crap on Slashdot 'cuz I'm an idiot!
  • Fascinating stuff.
  • This isn't really culture. It's a self-centered rehashing of more dot-com lemmings' experiences and thoughts about their pitiful jobs. It's a meeting place of people who have no lives outside of their jobs, and need someone else to rehash their miserable lives (jobs) with. Perhaps the people involved with this project would be happier if they just turned off the computer, both at home and work.
  • It seems like any troll with a keyboard can throw stones at Katz. Bitch all you want but how about actually COMMENTING ON THE SUBJECT MATTER INSTEAD OF THE AUTHOR? What a concept!
  • It seems everytime there is an article written by JohnKatz, he goes down in flames. What's so wrong about his writings?

    Damn it, it's EDITORIAL COMMENTS. That means you don't have to agree, but that doesn't mean he's an idiot or incompetent.

    If you are not happy with his view on the internet or the industry in general why not write your own website with editorial comments about whatever you like?

    Come on people, give the poor guy a break!
    • For all too many people in this world, hate remains the greatest motivator, so the tiny proportion of SlashDotters who have learnt to hate Jon become much more motivated to attack him and post more aggressively than however many there might be who enjoy his writings, to say nothing of the multitudes who either don't care or who just treat his writings on their merits.

      I guess I should at least come clean and admit that finding Jon writing for /. turned me into a regular here, so substantive reasons others might have for hating him aren't reasons I relate to.

      To me the even bigger question is why those who are so loud in their hatred don't apply the tools Slash has available to exclude Jon's articles from their view?

      Surely they cannot claim technical ineptitude.

      More seriously, the one thing that slightly worries me about the persistent attacks is that it is a measure of the reluctance of too many narrowly productive people to admit that a wider world view might have any relevance to them.

      These might be representative of the kind of people you could hire to develop truly evil technologies without them giving the outcomes a second thought.

      I somehow doubt that anybody who respects what Jon brings to SlashDot is going to be a party to things that might do the world substantial harm.
  • There's no way JonKatz is a real person. Someone did a cat to /dev/random on some beast of a machine in the basement of Bell Labs that only after 20 years is starting to make sense.

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